Nokia N900

In a world full of powerful Android devices, is the Nokia N900 the best Linux computer you can fit in your pocket?

The first time I thought about the N900 was about a year and a half
before it was ever released. I was at the Penguicon conference, and some
friends and I had settled down at a table to continue the time-honored
tradition of chatting with each other on IRC even though we were a few
feet away from each other. I noticed a friend take out a Nokia N800 and a
Bluetooth keyboard and proceed to chat and browse the Web as though
it were a laptop. I was amazed someone had managed to put together a
smaller computer than I had, which made me start to reconsider what
an ultraportable computer really was.

I always have preferred my portable computers to be, well,
portable. My very first laptop was a Toshiba Libretto 50CT, and it
was about the size of a VHS tape if you are old enough to know what
those are. Since then, all of my laptops have been in the ultraportable
category. As I looked at my friend's N800, I concluded that the main
things missing were a bit more speed and cellular connectivity. After
all, when the wireless was spotty at the conference, many of us were
tethered to our cell phones or air cards. I decided if Nokia's next
version of the Nseries was fast enough and had a cellular connection,
it would be the device for me.

It should come as no surprise that when Nokia announced the N900, I
was immediately intrigued. Would this be the new portable Linux computer
I was looking for? Also, as a sysadmin who shares on-call duties, did
I still need to drag my laptop around when I was on call, or could I do
everything from this device? I have been fortunate to be able to spend a
few months with an N900 Nokia provided me, and in this article, I review
the N900 from the perspective of a longtime Linux geek who wants to
know whether it can give me a small and open Linux device that can
replace a Netbook or even a laptop for portable computing.

Hardware

One of the things that could make or break the N900 as a Netbook/laptop
replacement is its hardware. As you'll see, the N900's hardware is a
hybrid between a Netbook and a smartphone. Here are some of the main
technical specs:

If you are in the US, although the N900 is unlocked
and can be used on any GSM network, if you want 3G speeds, you will have
to use T-Mobile, as the N900 doesn't support AT&T's 3G frequencies.

The box also includes headphones, power adapters and a TV-out cable,
but unfortunately, it's only a composite cable so you won't get the full
800x480 resolution of the native screen. Although it tends to work okay for a
movie or a video game, when I used it to show slides during a presentation,
the text was a bit difficult to read.

Finally, like the N810 before it, the N900 includes a slide-out hardware
keyboard suitable for thumb typing. The keyboard itself is a bit small
and has only three rows of keys and an offset spacebar that can throw
you until you get used to it. But, the keyboard feels
pretty solid, and after using it for a few weeks, I can type fast enough
to keep up in IRC. If you want to do extended typing on the N900, I
recommend investing in a larger keyboard. Unlike the prior Nseries,
there is no USB-host mode, so you'll need a Bluetooth keyboard.

The Maemo Linux Distribution

A number of portable devices have similar
hardware specs to the N900, but what makes it different is the
software. Like the Nseries devices that preceded it, the N900 runs
Maemo—Nokia's Debian-based Linux distribution. Maemo really feels like
any other Debian-based distribution only optimized for a small
touchscreen.
Although you have custom desktop widgets, panels and application
management, behind the scenes, you'll find standard Linux systems like
apt-get, X, pulseaudio, upstart, dbus, gconf and sudo. Also, it's simple
to get root on Maemo without hacking firmware or voiding warranties. Simply
install the rootsh package that's available in the default repositories,
and type sudo gainroot to get a root shell.

Maemo's desktop environment feels a lot like a slimmed-down,
touchscreen-friendly GNOME desktop. The desktop is one screen high and up
to four screens wide, and you can touch the screen and drag left or right
to switch between desktops. Figure 1 shows a somewhat tweaked version
of a Maemo desktop featuring shortcuts to some favorite applications,
but you also can put shortcuts to contacts, bookmarks or various widgets
on the desktop as well. Widgets act much like plasmoids or other desktop
widgets and let you manage the media player, check the weather, check
news or Twitter feeds, or do other similar tasks.

Figure 1. A Maemo Desktop with the Matrix Theme

Along the top of the desktop is a bar that acts much like a panel on
GNOME or KDE. On the top left-hand corner is a button you use to switch
between desktops, an application launcher screen and an Expose-like
application switcher that shows all of your currently running applications
(Figure 2). This last feature is particularly well done and really makes
the N900 stand out for its multitasking abilities. You also can press
the Ctrl-Backspace shortcut keys to present the application switcher.
It is very easy to switch between
different programs.

Figure 2. The Application Switcher with a Few Favorite Programs Opened

Kyle Rankin is Chief Security Officer at Purism, a company focused on computers that respect your privacy, security, and freedom. He is the author of
many books including Linux Hardening in Hostile Networks, DevOps Troubleshooting and The Official Ubuntu

great phone. a little thicker than i'd like. processor is faster though than my old unlocked blackberry phones. simple to use, texting and web browsing is good. my partner loves it for the gps and the wifi and my family loves their unlocked mobile phones for the facebook and games. speaker is really loud and it hooks up to my computer simply. also the camera and recorder are great. got our last couple unlocked mobile phones at gsmauthority.com 2 thumbs way up

Unfortunately, although a few other third-party GPS programs are available for the N900, none available at the time of this writing seem to be able to provide a better set of features than the default.

For a good replacement for the awful default OVI maps, try Mappero (http://www.mardy.it/mappero/) which is in the Extras repository.
Admittedly I've never felt the need for GPS before, so I can't compare it with other programs, but it works well for me and has shown me just how useful GPS can be, even when you don't need to rely on it for directions (though it has that functionality anyway).

My preferred method for adding the pipe character (among others) was to edit the xkb symbols file for the N900 - it's /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/nokia_vndr/rx-51 - and edit the entries for the arrow keys so that they have useful alternate characters with the Fn key. There's a tutorial at http://wiki.maemo.org/Remapping_keyboard - I've got tab, escape, |, and ~ associated with Fn+left, right, up, and down respectively.

The nice thing is that doing this lets you get rid of the toolbar (gconftool-2 -s /apps/osso/xterm/toolbar -t bool "false") and thus have more terminal real estate. Which is, of course, a Good Thing. :)

I agree it's an awesome phone but I fear it'll be short lived. A geek market? Whoa comeon. Real geeks can tweek anything into something awesome. Yes I like n900 but there are more downsides to note. Biggest being- loading beta when nothing else is out there. This tablet's been out a while now and I still need to trawl..and fMMS is great but slow like some beta. So I gotta great tablet running maemo 5 and MeeGo coming before x-mas and got no time to tweek or write code. But will I put this n900 down? No.. cos this is an investment. Like the bomb squad would say.. I gotta N900- and I'm gonna use it!!! -good review, thanks :) ps. typed on n900 on the couch ;)

Thanks for the review -- I've owned one for quite some time now, and it's a sad that the device hasn't gotten more exposure. For a geek open-source purist, it's a much better device than an android phone. (Nothing against android -- just a different market niche :-)).

I think, though, that it's a product ahead of its time. I suspect (and hope) that in a couple of years there will be more devices that sit in a similar design space -- a bit bigger, and much,much more powerful...